


Mind Over Matter

by kireteiru



Category: Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015)
Genre: Age Difference, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bottom Eggsy, Dream Sex, Eggsy can read minds, Eggsy meets the Queen, Exploding Heads, F/M, Fix-It, Harry Hart Lives, Lee's family is full of psychics, M/M, Maybe - Freeform, Mind Control, Older Man/Younger Man, Psychometry, Slow Build, Technopathy, Telepathic Bond, Telepathic Sex, Telepathy, Top Harry, Touch Telepathy, Unimportant people are dying, Universe Alteration, ish
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-04
Updated: 2015-11-24
Packaged: 2018-04-02 22:00:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 19,487
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4075336
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kireteiru/pseuds/kireteiru
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Harry was halfway back to Savile Row before he realized that he'd never told the boy his name.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Based on [this prompt](http://kingsman-kink.livejournal.com/1185.html?thread=11425#t11425) at kingsman kink. No, not dressing-room3, the other one. Also, the second (and likely last) chapter for Ol Ascha is about halfway done.

“I very much regret that your husband’s bravery can’t be publicly celebrated,” said Harry Hart, holding the gaze of Lee Unwin’s widow, “I hope you understand.”

“How can I understand?” Michelle shot back, “You won’t tell me anything. I didn’t even know he wasn’t with his squad.”

“I’m so sorry, I can’t say more.” When she nodded, he continued, “But I would like to present you with this Medal of Valor. If you look closely on the back, there’s a number. As a more concrete gesture of our gratitude, we’d like to offer you, um…” How to word it… “Let’s call if a favor. The nature of it is your choice. Just tell the operator, ‘Oxfords, not brogues,’ and then I’ll know it’s you.”

“I don’t want your help,” she snapped, smacking his hand away, “I want my husband back.” She buried her face in her hands and began to sob.

Harry sighed and got to his feet. Lee Unwin’s small son was playing with a snow globe nearby, so he approached him instead and crouched down next to him. “What’s your name, young man?”

“Eggsy,” the boy responded, looking up at him with abnormally perceptive eyes.

“Hello, Eggsy.”

Eggsy looked him over for a moment, then stated more than asked, “Daddy’s not comin' home, is 'e?”

 _Very_ perceptive. “No, I’m afraid not.”

“How'd 'e die?”

Harry’s mind flashed back to the moment Lee threw himself on the would-be suicide bomber, and so he failed to notice the boy flinch. “Bravely,” the spy said finally, “He saved my life, and the lives of those who were with us.”

Eggsy nodded and set aside his snow globe. Harry handed him the medal. “You take care of this, Eggsy. All right?” When the boy nodded, the man glanced back at the widow. “And take care of your mum, too.”

The boy nodded again, examining the medal, and said, “Thank you, Mr Hart.”

Harry patted him on the shoulder and left. He was halfway back to Savile Row before he realized that he'd never told the boy his name.


	2. Many Meetings

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Reiterating what I added to the notes of the last chapter: A) I'm American. If I fuck something up, tell me and I'll fix it. B) I've both read and written out Eggsy's accent completely a few times, and it really muddles the comprehensibility of his speech, so I will only be writing out certain parts of it, ie dropping letters, contractions ("That" becomes "tha'," "Harry" becomes "'Arry") rather than respelling words (He pronounces "with" as "wif," "Arthur" as "Arfur," etc.), and even then I probably won't be doing all the time. It can get pretty distracting trying to decipher it, which is not the point of the fic.

Eggsy Unwin looked at himself in his mirror and thought, ‘I am not Dean. I will not use what I have for my sole gain.’

“Eggsy!”

“I don’ have any Rizla, Mum!” he called back to her. He’d been around her for so long and read her so many times that he didn’t need to anymore. He knew the ebb and flow, the unique music of her thoughts without needing to focus on her.

“Why don’t you do your mum a favor, go down the shop an’ get some?”

Eggsy left his room so he didn’t have to shout through the door at Dean. “Get ‘em yourself.”

“Oi.” His mum looked up from her magazine. Eggsy still remembered what she’d been like back when his father had been alive. Days like these, the disconnect was more jarring than usual. “What’ve I said t’you about speaking to Dean like that?”

“Three’s a crowd, innit? Why don’ Dean’s Poodle go?”

The man dug in his pocket and pulled out a wad of bills. Eggsy knew it was dirty money, but he took it anyway and departed after soothing Daisy and putting her dummy back in her mouth. He got the paper his mother wanted, then met up with Ryan and Jamal at the Black Prince. They’d become friends after Eggsy had saved Jamal’s sister from being raped.

Neither of them really understood, though. “If Dean treats your um so bad, why don’ she leave ‘im?” Ryan asked.

“Low self-esteem,” Jamal asserted, “That’s ‘er problem.”

“Fuck off. Why would she have low self-esteem? Eggsy’s mum’s _well_ fit.” Ryan shared a fist bump with Jamal before saying, “No offense, bruv.”

He could tell that they didn’t really mean anything by it, coupled with the fact that they both knew very little about human psychology. “It’s all right,” he hummed, “One o’ these days, I’m gonna smash ‘is face in.”

“Are you mental, cuz? He’d just get that lot to do you and then pretend he knew nothing… about it.” Jamal gestured to Rottweiler and the rest of Dean’s hangers-on, but his voice trailed off when they turned to glare in his direction.

“Oi!” Rottweiler growled, “You think you can chat shit about us an’ we won’t do nothing just ‘cause our guvnor’s bangin’ Eggsy’s mum?”

The telepath wasn’t in the mood to put up with them. “Pretty much, yeah.” He did leave when they told him to, but not before turning their minds so he could snatch the punk’s keys without them noticing. There was going to be hell to pay, he knew, but he was so damned _sick_ of the condescending twats and their fucking superiority complexes. If they didn’t have Dean’s protection for running his drugs, they’d be in the exact same position.

“It’s freezing. Why are we walking?”

They’d also be on the wrong side of the law, but Eggsy had the advantage of a built-in police radar. The minds of the cops and the soldiers from the Marines were all similar in their structure, the way they  were trained to process information and respond to commands lending a certain order to their thoughts that wasn’t present in civilian minds. Even a cousin he’d met from his father’s side, Amanda Wilcox, had a similar ordered construction to her mind that couldn’t be entirely attributed to her own mental abilities.

As a result, he felt it when the cops began to pursue him, even before he spotted the flashing lights of their cars. Though he tried to redirect them, it was hard to focus on them and driving at the same time, and they were never off the trail for long. They finally caught up with him when he avoided running over a fox looking for food for her kits, colliding with a parked car instead. No matter his friends’ opinions on the matter, he wasn’t in the business of running over animals just because they were in his way, even if they _were_ “vermin” – he didn’t like feeling them die in his head any more than he liked humans doing the same.

“Shoulda done a lot of things,” he said in response to their words. ‘Shoulda told Mum Dean was a piece of shit at the beginning before ‘e got ‘is claws in, shoulda stayed in the Marines, shoulda taken Daisy and run, shoulda, shoulda, shoulda,’ he thought before ordering his friends out of the car, pushing their minds to get them to go.

That was how he wound up in the Holborn police station, facing relatively minor charges but eighteen months behind bars for not turning in his mates. Despite what his arsehole interrogator (gone through three girlfriends in as many months ‘cause he was terrible between the sheets) claimed, there _was_ honour amongst thieves (unlike that spineless little shit – he’d been fucking around with other birds while dating the main three).

“I wanna exercise my right to a phone call,” the telepath said bluntly.

“Well,” said the cheating bastard, standing from the table and ripping up the paper he’d put on it, “I ‘ope it’s to your mum, to tell ‘er you’re gonna be eighteen months late for your dinner.”

It’d be more than that, Eggsy knew. There was no way his mum could afford a decent barrister, no way Dean would allow it, which meant relying on one assigned to him, and he knew that some of them did shitty work on purpose to get criminals locked up even if they were actually innocent. There was no telling who he would get, and even the best could only reduce his sentence, not eliminate it.

There was no way in hell he was giving Dean free reign like that.

Eggsy reached into his shirt and pulled out the medal he’d worn every day since the mysterious “Mr Hart” had put it in his hand. He remembered liking the feel of the man’s mind, but little else about him.

He dialled the number on the back of the medal and pressed the cordless phone to his ear, listening to it ring.

_“Customer Complaints, how may I help you?”_

What? “Customer Complaints?” For _what?_ “Um, my name is Eggsy Unwin – sorry, Gary Unwin, an’ I’m up shit creek. I’m in Holborn police station, and my mum said to call this number if I ever needed ‘elp, an’-“

_“I’m sorry, sir. Wrong number.”_

“Wait! Uh – ‘Oxfords, not brogues?’”

There was a moment of silence. Then, _“Your complaint has been duly noted, and we hope that we have not lost you as a loyal customer.”_

Again, customer for _what?_ Was she saying that just to get him off the line? (His mind had a bad habit of focusing on inane details while under certain stressful situations.)

But less than fifteen minutes later, he walked out of the station with charges dropped and record completely clear. He was amazed that one phone call had done all that, so much so that he didn’t recognize the familiar mind in range until the man called his name.

“Eggsy,” said Mr Hart, leaning up against the wall in his posh suit and sunglasses, “Would you like a lift home?”

A quick brush showed that he didn’t expect Eggsy to remember him, so the telepath played along. “Who are you?”

“The man who got you released,” was the response.

“That ain’t an answer.”

“A little gratitude would be nice. My name is Harry Hart, and I gave you that medal. Your father saved my life.”

* * *

The cab ride to the Black Prince was too short in Eggsy’s opinion. He still fancied the feel of the man’s mind, structured like a soldier’s but without all the “blockiness” that came with the training, smooth and diverse like a civilian’s without all the willy-nilly disorder. The best of both worlds. Yet under the posh look and feel of him, the telepath could sense an undercurrent of violence, of someone who had fought for their lives on so many occasions that assessing threats was almost entirely unconscious and combat came as naturally as breathing. A high number of missions referred to as “dead drops” (no additional support or contact with HQ or other agents; simply an objective, a time limit for extraction, and whatever equipment he could carry or pick up on the way) contributed to that.

Eggsy had always had a bit of a guilty attraction to blokes in uniform or fine suits, and now here was both of those wrapped up in the handsome package of an older, mature, and experienced gentleman.

When they settled into a booth at the bar and received their drinks, Eggsy continued their earlier conversation with, “So before you was a tailor, was you in the army? Like an officer?”

“Not quite.”

“So where was you posted, Iraq or somethin’?”

“Sorry, Eggsy, classified.”

Uh-huh. He already knew, but he kept playing along. He still didn’t know if he could trust the man with knowledge of his powers if push came to shove, though he’d come through before. _This_ was something _entirely_ different. “But my dad saved your life, yeah?”

“The day your father died, I missed something.” In the other man’s head, Eggsy once again saw the replay of that day, ending with his dad throwing himself on the terrorist. “And if it weren’t for his courage, my mistake would have cost the lives of every man present. So I owe him.

“Your father was a brave man. A good man. And having read your files, I think he’d be bitterly disappointed in the choices you’ve made.”

“You can’t talk to me like that!”

“Huge IQ, great performance at primary school… and it all went tits up. Drugs, petty crime, never had a job.”

“Oh, you think there’s a lot of jobs goin’ ‘round here, do you?” He knew the man was trying to rile him up, but it was still working.

“Doesn’t explain why you gave up your hobbies,” Harry shot back, “First prize, regional under-10s gymnastics two years in a row. Your coach had you pegged as Olympic team material.”

“Yeah? Well, when you grow up around someone like my stepdad, you pick up new ‘obbies pretty quick.” He crossed his arms.

“Of course. Always someone else’s fault. Who’s to blame for you quitting the Marines? You were halfway through training, doing brilliantly, but you gave up.”

“Because my mum went mental,” he snarled, teeth bared, tempted to dump the memory of his mother’s panicked, crying voice into the spy’s head, “bangin’ on about losin’ me as well as my dad.” Then he leaned closer. “Didn’ want me bein’ cannon fodder for snobs like _you_ , judging people like me from your ivory towers with no thought about _why_ we do what we do. We ain’ got much choice, you get me? An’ if we was born with the same silver spoon up our arses, we’d do jus’ as well as you, if not better.”

“What the fuck you doin’ here? You takin’ the piss?”

Shit. Rottweiler and the rest of the dog pack. He’d been so caught up with Harry and his unusual mind that he hadn’t noticed their approach.

“Some more examples of young men who simply need a silver suppository?” the spy asked dryly, glancing between them.

“No, they’re exceptions,” Eggsy told him, “Come on.”

“Nonsense,” the gentleman responded, “We haven’t finished our drinks.” He took a sip of his Guinness.

“After you nicked his car,” said Poodle, jerking his thumb at Rottweiler, “Dean says you’re fair game. He don’ give a shit what your mum says.”

“Um, listen, boys, I’ve had a rather emotional day, so whatever your beef with Eggsy is – and I’m sure it’s well-founded-“

‘WOW, _rude_.’

“-I’d appreciate it enormously if you could just leave us in peace until I finish this lovely pint of Guinness.”

“You should get out of the way, Granddad, or you’ll get ‘urt and all.”

“He ain’ joking.” Rottweiler had a gun tucked into his waistband, and no matter how well-trained he was or bulletproof his suits, Harry would still die if he got shot in the head, and that was something Eggsy could not allow. “You should go.” He gave the man a nudge to get him to comply.

Harry met his gaze. Depending on the mental structure of someone’s mind, they could be easier or harder to influence, but his presence was more likely to be noticed if he got someone to do something contrary to their nature. The man didn’t want to leave him, but Eggsy pushed a little harder, implying that this wasn’t anything he couldn’t survive.

The man was walking towards the doors when Poodle, who couldn’t resist a parting shot, said, “If you’re lookin’ for another rent boy, they’re on the corner of Smith Street.”

‘Oh shit.’

Harry came to a stop before the doors. The sudden and _ferocious_ but tightly controlled **burn** of his anger, mixed with a strain of possessiveness not yet fully developed, threw off Eggsy’s influence, and he had to withdraw from the spy’s mind before it burned him, too.

‘Ohshitohshitohshitohshit-‘

Though sorely tempted to duck under the table to ride out the oncoming storm, the telepath remained where he was, watching silently as the spy growled, “Manners. Maketh. Man,” and punctuated each word by sliding shut one of the bolts on the doors. Dean’s gang barely had two brain cells to rub together among them, but they recognized a challenge when they heard one and advanced on the spy from behind. Harry met Eggsy’s gaze in the reflection off a Guinness plaque next to the door, before returning to observing the dog pack as he continued, “Do you know what that means?” No response, so he said, “Then let me teach you a lesson.”

He dropped the handle of his umbrella to hook around a half-empty glass on a table next to him, and whipped it backwards. His aim was impeccable, the glass shattering against Rottweiler’s forehead. The thug fell backwards, momentarily out of it, as Harry turned back to them and walked almost languidly back. “Are we going to stand around here _all_ day, or are we going to fight?” he asked.

And then he proceeded to beat the shit out of them while Eggsy looked on in awe, displaying skill and dexterity both in hand-to-hand and with his umbrella as an improvised bow staff, which made the telepath want to see him in the field with a real one, and expertly using the weapons inside it. Harry turned the dog pack who had so terrorized Eggsy life up until that point, into a pile of ungainly brawlers on the ground, and knocked out the bartender with some kind of tranquilizer dart from his watch before the man could call the cops (and the younger man couldn’t help but feel like the elder was showing off, even if it was just a little).

As Harry returned to the table, the telepath sat up straighter and continued to stare. Time and human ego hadn’t exaggerated the skills displayed in the spy’s memories at all; he _actually was_ that good. Eggsy followed his staring with _more_ staring, watching intently as the man sat back down with a sigh and finished the last few swallows of his Guinness. After he put the glass back on the table, he said, “Sorry about that. Needed to let off a little steam,” as if he had simply mildly insulted someone. Eggsy felt his anger fade to a low simmer but didn’t dare intrude in his mind again. “I heard yesterday a friend of mine died,” Harry went on, “He knew your father, too, actually.”

Then he got up from the table. “Now I do apologize, Eggsy. I shouldn’t have done this in front of you.”

He heard the click of the watch and jerked back, hands going up when it was pointed at him, frantically stuttering, “No – please – I won’ say nothin’, I swear – if there’s one thing I _can_ do, it’s keep my mouth shut!”

“You won’t tell a soul?”

“Ask the Feds – I’ve never grassed anyone up!”

“Is that a promise?”

“On my life!” He was too stressed to push, even to get past surface thoughts-

Harry lowered his arm. “Much appreciated, Eggsy.” He picked up his umbrella, which he’d propped up against the side of the booth, and added, “You’re right about the snobs, but there, too, there are exceptions. Best of luck with everything.” The man patted his shoulder, then departed, looking for all the world like he’d simply walked out of a business meeting rather than a bar fight.

It was only after he walked out the door that Eggsy realized he was hard as diamond in his jeans, and the only thing that had stopped it from being painfully obvious was the angle of the table.

* * *

Eggsy would firmly deny, to _anyone_ who asked, that he ducked into the washroom to get himself off before heading home. He would also firmly deny that he bit into his own wrist to muffle his cry of “Harry!” as he came.

He was still distracted when he returned to the flat, internally reviewing the fight, so he didn’t notice Dean until it was too late. The telepath jerked backwards reflexively to lessen the impact of the arsehole’s punch, then doubled over in advance when the next one went for his gut. Eggsy forced his mum to back up as Dean got up in his face, roaring, _“Who was with you in that fucking pub?! I wanna know the name of the geezer you was with!”_

“I wasn’ with no one!”

_“Who was it?!”_

“I don’t know what you’re on about!”

 _“Who was it?!?”_ Each demand was coupled with a harsh slap, and Eggsy wanted more than anything to take control of his mind and force him to back off, but he’d done it once before – the very first time ever, actually. He hadn’t been as practiced at going unnoticed in people’s minds, so Dean had known he’d done something, though not what, and threatened to kill his mother and him if he tried it again.

“I don’t know what you’re fuckin’ on about!!” the telepath shouted, preparing to withdraw into himself. It was a defence mechanism he’d developed as a result of the man’s abuse, the ability to pull back from his body and simply observe what was happening without feeling any of it until he came back out.

“FUCKIN’ TELL ME HIS NAME!”

“I don’t know who you’re fuckin’ on about!”

“You listen to me! I wanna know who you was with in that pub, d’you understand?! I wanna know his fucking name! ‘Cause I swear, I’ll rip your ‘ead off! TELL ME!” The man shoved him back harder against the fridge.

“I don’t know what you’re fuckin’ on about!!”

“Tell me!!”

“Just tell him, Eggsy!” Michelle cried, still held away out of range by the force of Eggsy’s will.

Dean grabbed a meat cleaver off the counter nearby and pointed it at her, snarling, “Fuck off! Fuck off, Michelle!” Turning back to Eggsy, he pressed the edge right up against the telepath’s throat, shouting, “I could kill you right now, and no one in the ‘ole world will notice!”

_“But I would.”_

Harry. Eggsy briefly wondered if the man somehow had telepathic powers as well and hid them so he didn’t notice, but he couldn’t sense the spy’s awareness.

 _“I have enough evidence on your activities to have you locked up for the rest of your life, Mr Dean Anthony Baker,”_ Harry went on.

“The fuck?!”

_“So I suggest you leave the boy alone, or I shall be forced to deliver it to the appropriate authorities. Eggsy, meet me at the tailor I told you about.”_

The telepath took the opportunity presented and scrambled for the door, releasing his mother at the same time. He was so focused on getting away, that he didn’t notice Rottweiler and some of the pack – looking noticeably worse for wear – waiting for him a little away from the door. The rest of them were coming up the stairs, so Eggsy bolted to the end of the walk, vaulted over the wall, and parkoured his way down to street level. He turned back to flip them off, smiling, and then began to walk.


	3. Out of the Frying Pan

Night had fallen by the time he reached the Kingsman tailors on Savile Row. Eggsy took a minute to admire the fine workmanship of the jackets on display before entering the shop.

Harry was seated on a leather couch just inside, waiting for him, and looked up when he opened the door. The man’s gaze crawled down his body like a firm grope before flicking back up, and Eggsy shivered with the realization that the spy had heard him jerking off in the bathroom of the Black Prince. He didn’t dare let on that he knew that Harry knew, so instead he settled for, “I’ve never met a tailor before, but I _know_ you ain’ one,” as he shoved his hands in his jacket pockets.

The gentleman kept his eyes on the telepath as he swallowed the last of his alcohol, then said, “Come with me.” He set the tumbler on an end table and led Eggsy to stand in front of a mirror in one of the fitting rooms. “What do you see?”

The telepath resisted the urge to immerse himself in the man’s mind. He’d already slipped in once, stolen enough secrets to get _both_ of them killed, and jerked off to the spy kicking the shit out of a group of thugs. “Someone who wants to know what the _fuck_ is going on,” he answered honestly.

“I see a young man with potential.”

‘Oh, please, not this speech. I’ve ‘eard it enough times from other people.”

“A young man who is loyal,” Harry continued, “who can do as he’s asked, and who wants to do something good with his life.”

‘Damned right I do. I don’ wanna turn into tha’ arsehole Dean.’

“Did you see the film _Trading Places_?”

“No.”

“How about _Nikita_?” At his shake, the spy tried, “ _Pretty Woman_? All right. My point is that the lack of a silver spoon has set you on a certain path, but you needn’t stay on it. If you’re prepared to adapt and learn… you can transform.”

“Oh, like in _My Fair Lady_.” That one he _had_ seen. It had been the only programme clearly viewable on the telly while his mum was in the hospital after giving birth to Daisy.

“Well, _you’re_ full of surprises,” Harry smiled, “Yes, like _My Fair Lady_.” Then he became serious again. “Only in this case, I’m offering you the opportunity to become a Kingsman.”

‘Yessss…’ “A tailor?” he asked, purposely playing dumb. He wanted to hear the man say it aloud.

“A Kingsman agent,” Harry clarified.

“Like a spy?”

“Of sorts. Interested?”

“You think I’ve got anything to lose?”

Harry hummed, then stepped forward, close enough that Eggsy could feel his body heat seeping through their clothes. The spy put his hand on the mirror, and the telepath heard a few clicks, followed by a clank and a grinding whirr as they began their descent. Harry gave him the background on their organization on the way down, before Eggsy asked, “How deep does this fucking thing go?”

“Deep enough,” was the reply.

There was an underground bullet train car open and waiting for them when they reached the bottom. Eggsy followed Harry to it and took the seat he offered, which he almost fell out of when the bullet train jerked to life. He was tempted to let himself pitch face-first into the man’s crotch, but that would have been too over-the-top and probably put him off. Instead, he clung to the seat until his body adjusted to the speed, catching a glimpse of a faint smile on the spy’s face.

“So where we goin’?” Eggsy asked, finally settling into his chair.

“Hertfordshire,” Harry replied.

Eggsy could feel the countryside speeding away above them, the minds of the people who lived their flashing by in an eye blink. They jerked to a stop again, almost sending the telepath sprawling.

The train pod opened and released them into some sort of office space type area. Eggsy was more interested in the large window at the back of the room than anything on the desks, and stared out into the hangar beyond.

At least twenty different types of planes sat in neat rows towards the far end of the hangar, everything from single fighters straight from the military to posh personal jets. Seemingly hundreds of different types of cars, motorcycles, and ATVs from all over the world accompanied the planes. Some of them were receiving repairs and tune ups. There was other specialized equipment, as well, and what looked like a pile of fabric attached to a basket – a hot air balloon? _Really?_

Eggsy reached out to scan the Kingsman personnel – and was surprised when he felt a handful of people notice his presence and withdraw. He waited. Then, with no attack apparently forthcoming, a few of them reached back out to look for him. He just let them know that he was one of the trainees trying for the Lancelot position and that he would keep their secret if they kept his. The other telepaths agreed on behalf of them all and passed along the message to those who couldn’t reach out like them – an aura reader in the intelligence division, and one telekinetic and two clairvoyants who handled the equipment for the agents.

Eggsy followed Harry to what was apparently the trainee barracks, where a tall, bald man with a clipboard was waiting for them. “Galahad.”

“My code name,” the spy told him.

“Late again, sir.”

“Good luck,” Harry offered, before Eggsy ducked into the room ahead of Merlin (and that was actually both his real name and his code name. Which, seriously, what the _fuck?_ Who names their kid _Merlin_?)

All of the other candidates were chatting amicably amongst themselves, but stopped when he entered. Merlin followed him and said, “Fall in.” When the telepath was lined up with the others, the tech wizard began, “Ladies and gentlemen, my name is Merlin. You are about to embark on what is probably the most _dangerous_ job interview in the world. One of you – and only one of you – will become the next Lancelot.” He walked over to one of the singles and picked up a bunch of folded green plastic. “Can anyone tell me what this is?”

The telepath hadn’t known the answer until he plucked it out of the others’ heads, so he stayed silent while (the posh git) Charlie answered, “Body bag, sir.”

“Correct. Charlie, is it?”

“Yessir.”

“Good. In a moment, you will each collect a body bag. You will write your name on that bag. You will write the details of your next of kin on that bag. This represents your acknowledgment of the risks that you’re about to face, as well as your agreement to strict confidentiality. Which, incidentally, if you _break_ , will result in you and your next of kin being in that bag. Is that understood? Excellent. Fall out.”

The rest of them thought Merlin was joking, but Eggsy knew better. Harry hadn’t been kidding when he said “Kingsman operated at the highest level of discretion.”

The telepath thought about it only for a moment before deciding to list Dean as his next of kin. He stepped over to the only free bed and patted his pockets for a pen.

The girl with the bed next to his held out her hand. “Roxanne,” she offered, “but call me Roxy.”

“I’m Eggsy,” he said, grasping her hand to shake-

She was a psychometric, a touch telepath, but her powers were much weaker than his – she could only do surface thoughts if she was touching a person, or pick up only the strongest of emotions if it was an object.

Both of them jolted in surprise but did not let on anything externally – what were the odds of there being _two_ psychics in the same candidate group?

“’Eggy?’”

“No, _Eggsy_.”

She heard it clearly that time. While he turned as Charlie came over to introduce himself slash humiliate the telepath, he offered her the same agreement he gave the others – mutual silence, mutual secrecy – and she accepted. He got the feeling that the two of them would be good friends, and could tell that she thought the same.

* * *

That night, what woke Eggsy first was not the water soaking into his clothes, but his teammates’ voices suddenly pouring into his head, the water amplifying their mental voices to the point where he couldn’t shut them out. Roxy felt the blowback of his pain, was the only one to recognize what their sudden collective headache _was_ , and tried to shield. But he still had seven other people’s thoughts tumbling around inside his mind –

- _Amelia was already Kingsman_. She was a plant, part of the test –

_Teamwork._

As the room finished filling, Eggsy took one last huge gasp of air, then dove to grab hold of Amelia as she “panicked,” turning her and pushing her toward the others. He touched Roxy’s mind, told her what he’d learned, and she understood. As they drew closer to the loos, she was already reaching out to grab Amelia by her shirt and pull her down next to her, offering first her, then Eggsy the “loo snorkel.” Then she took a breath of her own before returning it to the planted agent and swimming over to the other showers to make another one for herself. <How does the test end?> she asked, relying on the water to carry her message to the telepath.

/I dunno,/ Eggsy managed to send back, /Can’t focus – seven people’s too many./ He accepted another breath from Amelia, then swam around, searching.

Roxy understood his meaning. He could skim the surface thoughts of hundreds of people at once, but immersing himself in seven different minds (or rather, them being immersed in _him_ ) was too much. <What can we do?>

/I can’t tell when the test ends,/ he offered, scooping up one of the abandoned showerheads and fitting the nozzle between two of his fingers to form an improvised brass knuckles, /so I’ll end it meself./

The one-way mirror was tough, but the metal of the showerhead was tougher. The glass shattered on the second hit, hundreds of gallons of water pouring into the adjoining observation room and taking the trainees with it.

Merlin was there waiting for them. Without the water amplifying the other trainees’ thoughts to the exclusion of all else, Eggsy could properly sense him and the rest of the Kingsman personnel in his passive range, and the civilians up above them. “Congratulations on completing your first task,” said the tech wizard as the trainees shivered on the floor at his feet, and congratulated Charlie, Roxy, and Eggsy in particular for the loo snorkels and the one-way mirror. He responded to Charlie’s comment with a sharp, “Wipe that smirk off your face, boy. As far as I’m concerned, only Eggsy and Roxy passed this test. _He_ was the only one to notice Amelia was struggling, and _she_ was the only one to offer them aid so they didn’t drown before the test was terminated.

“There is _no_ agent who performs exclusively solo missions. Teamwork is _absolutely_ essential at Kingsman, because if you don’t have your teammates’ backs, all of you could very likely die.”

Eggsy and Roxy exchanged glances, panting, and nodded their thanks.

* * *

<I still think you’ve got the better end of the deal.>

/And I might agree with you if I weren’t getting’ over the biggest fuckin’ migraine of my life./ Eggsy squinted into the early morning sunlight, vaguely aware of Amelia leaving the grounds for Berlin once more. /Why’d you go with the poodle?/

<They’re gun dogs, oldest working breed. Easy to train, too. Not all of us have mind control. Why’d you go with the pug?>

/’E’s got a gentle temperament, very tolerant. Even if we don’ make Lancelot, they’ll let us keep the dogs. Pugs are on the approved list at the council estate, and he’ll be good with my baby sis while she grows up./ He mentally directed the dog to sit, and bent down to scratch his ears when JB did as commanded. /If you want any help, just say the word./

<I’ll think about it.>

* * *

It felt unnatural, seeing Harry unconscious on the infirmary bed, hooked up to so many tubes and monitors. Merlin said that there was no brain trauma, or even any major physical trauma at all, so when there was no one else in the room, Eggsy sank into one of the chairs by the man’s bedside and took his hand. He closed his eyes to aid his focus and immersed himself in Harry’s mind.

The man was dreaming deeply and vividly of his life with Kingsman – and occasionally the future of his life with Kingsman, if the glimpses of Eggsy himself as Lancelot were anything to go by. It was nice to know that the spy had so much faith in him that it showed up in his subconscious musings. But unfortunately, all dreams had to come to an end.

The telepath had never been so grateful for Dean’s violent tendencies before. Once, the man had beat his mum so badly that she wound up in the hospital in a short coma from a blow to the head. Eggsy had stayed close to observe as she came out of it, and practiced pulling people out on the “hopeless” coma patients who still had detectable, coherent thoughts, so he could do it again in the future, if necessary. The few days she had been out had been hell back home.

He called on that knowledge now, and began gently stimulating the spy’s mind into higher and higher rates of activity, easing him up until he woke the rest of the way on his own. He waited until Harry woozily noticed him to whisper, “Hey, guvnor. Welcome back to the land o’ the living.”

The man gave his hand a weak squeeze, then the telepath pushed the call button.

To their credit, Merlin and the Kingsman doctors arrived quickly to check him over, and removed a few of the monitors, plus the feeding tube, when it became apparent that Harry really was fully awake. The head doctor still said that they were going to keep him for a few days for observation. Then they left Merlin to debrief him, since he was feeling up to it.

Eggsy could tell that he regretted saying so when the tech wizard just about tore him eight new arseholes for not letting his glasses’ footage stream to the right place before making him unlock it so they could see the footage.

“Fucking hell!” Eggsy gasped when Professor Arnold’s head blew up on the screen, “That is _rank_. I’m guessin’ that wasn’ you? I’d like to think you’ve got a bit more class than that.”

“The explosion appears to have been caused by an implant in his neck,” Merlin verified, rewinding the video and zooming in, “Here, under the scar.”

“Did my… hardware pick up… the signal that triggered it?” the spy rasped, accepting the glass of water Eggsy handed him with a grateful nod.

“Fortunately, yes,” Merlin replied after a minute of tapping on his clipboard, “The IP address it was traced to is registered to the Valentine Corporation.”

“Not much to go on,” Harry said, handing the glass back, “He has millions of employees worldwide.” He and Merlin continued to debate possibilities until Eggsy and the tech wizard had to depart for the next round of training.

* * *

“Ever heard of knocking?” Harry asked when Eggsy ducked into the control centre around two months later.

“Only when I’m casin’ a place to rob,” the telepath replied, “You two seen the announcement yet?” When both Merlin and the spy shook their heads, confused, he moved over to the control station and tapped out a few commands. “I dunno if it helps with whatever you’re investigating ‘im for, but…”

The three of them watched Valentine’s announcement all the way through, before Harry took control of the playback. “Valentine’s assistant has the same implant scar as Professor Arnold. I think Mr Valentine and I should have a tête-à-tête.”

Now it was Merlin’s turn at the controls. “He’s having a gala dinner next week. I’ll get you an invitation, but you need to be careful. I’ve been keeping track of the VIPs going missing, and rumour has it the Queen’s being added to the list. Palace PR has it that she’s ill, but even so no one’s seen her. _Or_ Prince William and his wife.”

“Still no ransom notes?”

“Not a one.”

“Then I suggest you make my alias somebody worth kidnapping.”


	4. A Storm Is Coming

Roxy started freaking out before they even got in the plane. Eggsy was forced to physically coax her onto the plane before the other candidates saw, but once there she settled a little. /Rox, I dunno why you’re freakin’ out. You’re more likely to die in a car crash than a plane./

<It’s not the plane I have a problem with – it’s the _jumping out._ > She clenched the straps of her parachute in her fists. <Why do we need to jump out of a perfectly good plane?>

/So you can do it when it’s not. An’ for missions, if you get a dead drop./

<Are there a lot of those?>

/I dunno. I’ve only really gone into Harry’s mind, an’ I get the feelin’ that he takes more of ‘em than usual./

The rest of the candidates arrived then, and boarded the plane. Less than fifteen minutes later, they were in the air. /It’s gonna be all right, Rox,/ Eggsy assured her, patting her knee as they approached the drop zone, /You’re top of the class./

 _“Listen up,”_ said Merlin over their headsets, _“Your mission is to land in the target without the radar detecting you. If I read you on the radar or you miss the target, you go home. Is that understood?”_

“Eggsy, I really don’t think I can do this,” Roxy gasped when the hatch opened and she was the English countryside rolling away far below them.

Charlie shoved them both aside, the rest of the trainees moving them to the back. The telepath ignored the offense in favour of asking, /Do you need me to help you?/

<Yes, please!>

When the light flashed green, Eggsy seized control of her body and forced her to throw herself out of the plane with the others. He released her when their descent stabilized, sticking close for reassurance, and tracked the positions of the others as they played around. He himself did a couple of flips and twists, enjoying the illusion of flight before Merlin came over the radio again.

_“My, my, you’re all very cheerful. Did you really think it was gonna be that straightforward? Any idiot can read a heads-up display. A Kingsman agent needs to be able to solve problems under pressure._

_“Like what to do when one of your group_ has no parachute _.”_

“ _What?!”_ Roxy nearly shrieked, _“No parachute?!”_

“Shit,” Eggsy cursed, and added a few more expletives for good measure.

“What do we do?!” Rufus yelled, panicking.

 _“I told you, aim for the target, come in under the radar,”_ said Merlin, _“And I hope not to be scraping one of you up. But if I do have to and you’re inside the target, please know I’ll be very impressed.”_

The telepath thought fast, then shouted, “Everybody listen! I’ve got a plan! Pair off! Grab the person closest to you!”

Of course there had to be the one person in the group whose cowardice affected the whole group. This time the dubious honour fell to Rufus: rather than work together, he opened his chute and was caught by the cloth as the rest of them continued to fall. Eggsy knew that he was over the radar and therefore out of the running for Lancelot, but that didn’t stop him from cursing at the other trainee. “Okay, quick, make a circle!” When they were all gathered in close, gripping one another’s hands, he continued, “We’ll pull our cords one by one! When we know who’s fucked, the person on their right grabs them!”

One by one, the other trainees released their chutes, until only the two psy-actives were left. Eggsy grabbed both of her hands and said, /Rox, no matter what happens now, I’ve got you, all right?!/

 Their low altitude alarms were shrilling in their ears, making the touch telepath cling to him. <Okay, Eggsy!>

/Yours first!/ He swung himself around, wrapping his legs around her waist and an arm around her shoulders, before reaching to open her chute. Both of them cursed at the sharp jolt, and Eggsy directed her to focus on steering them into Kingsman symbol on the lawn while he worried about holding on to her.

They hit the ground inside the symbol, the impact rippling up Eggsy first before transferring to Roxy as she slid down in his grasp. Both of them collapsed and laid there on the grass, panting and holding on to one another until Charlie’s descent forced them to move.

* * *

“Hugo, Digby, you don’t land in the K, you’re not in the K. Rufus, you opened too soon. You were all over the radar,” said Merlin as they all stood before him on the lawn, “All three of you, pack your bags, go home.” As the three of them walked away, Merlin turned to the remaining trainees. “Eggsy, Roxy, congratulations. You set a new record. Opening at 300 feet, that’s pretty ballsy. Well done for completing another task. Fall out.”

Eggsy stamped after Roxy and Charlie, inadvertently projecting his fury so powerfully that even the touch telepath could pick up on it. He sensed her question and growled, /All of us had working parachutes./

Her relieved laughter followed them all the way to the trainee barracks, where they all showered and relaxed, watching CNN coverage of the Valentine SIM card giveaway.

JB sat on Eggsy’s lap, sleeping and dreaming about running around on the Kingsman lawn with the other dogs. Or, at least until he was woken up by his master attempting to stand when Merlin entered the room.

“At ease,” said the tech wizard as they went to rise, “So you thought we were done for the day, huh? Well, we’re not.” He handed all three of them manila folders.

“A party?” Roxy asked, looking over the invitation.

“Tonight,” the tech wizard confirmed, “in London.”

“Who’s this?” Charlie held up the photo of the woman from the envelope.

“Your target,” Merlin responded, “Your mission is to use your NLP training to win over the individual in the photograph in your envelope. And when I say ‘win over,’ I do mean in the biblical sense.”

“Easy,” Eggsy grinned, rubbing JB’s ears and silently promising Roxy that he would make it fair by not using his mind control (not that he would have done so in the first place), “Posh girls love a bit o’ rough.”

“We’ll see about that, yeah?”

“We certainly will.”

* * *

And that was how Eggsy woke up tied to the tracks for the Underground, head splitting with another massive migraine. _God_ , he hated date-rape drugs – the Rohypnol had begun fucking with his abilities right away, which was how he had known there was something wrong. They were still going in and out, but the drug had worn off enough for him to sense someone’s approach. “Who th’ fuck’re you?” he slurred at the man in black walking toward him, “Where am I?”

The man stopped in front of him. “This knife,” he said, holding up the blade, “can save your life, huh?”

Eggy heard the train whistle blowing, felt the tracks, the ground beginning to shake under him, and cursed loudly.

“My employer’s got two questions for you, Eggsy: what the fuck is Kingsman, and who’s Harry Hart?”

“I don’ know who the fuck that is! _Shit!_ ” He yanked against the ropes binding him to the tracks, and cursed the drugs preventing him from using his powers.

“Oh, Eggsy, I just killed two of your friends for giving me the same bullshit answer!”

“Fuck!” His migraine was almost to the point where it would knock him out again. “Just cut the fucking ropes, _please!_ ”

“Hey, Eggsy!” the interrogator called as the roar of the train drew even closer, “Is Kingsman worth dying for?!”

 _Harry is._ “Fuck you!” he roared, before the train was on top of him. Eggsy kept his eyes squeezed shut until it had gone, then realized he felt no pain. His head hadn’t been smashed open like a melon, his hands and feet hadn’t been pulped at the wrists and ankles, so he opened his eyes.

The stretch of track he was on had been dropped below the level of the rest of the tracks, the rails joined over top of him to allow the train to pass over the gap without interruption.

Harry was standing on the service path for the tunnel, holding a knife. “Congratulations,” he said as the extended rails retracted, the platform returning to ground level, “Bloody well done.”

“How’d the others do?”

“Roxy passed with flying colours,” Harry responded. Eggsy caught a glimpse of her in his head, resolute as ever. “Charlie’s up next. Want to watch?”

“Yeah, all right.”

As Harry stepped down to cut him loose, the telepath saw something else on the surface of the spy’s thoughts. It was a true to life image of himself, but instead of being tied to the train tracks, he was spread-eagle on a four-poster bed, bound with silk neckties on silk sheets. His lips were red and swollen with kisses and bites, parted as he panted for breath, his pupils dilated with arousal. His shirt was shoved up to show nipples hard, wet, and red from sucking, love nips all down his stomach, and his jeans were open at the fly, shoved down enough to bare his stiff prick, dripping precum onto his stomach.

And just like that, Eggsy was hard as a rock in his trousers. He prayed Harry didn’t notice; his mind control still hadn’t come back yet, so he couldn’t turn the man’s attention to other things.

The spy noticed anyway, but assumed it was from adrenalin and gave him time to compose himself before they both went to Merlin’s control centre. Charlie failed, much to Eggsy’s delight, and Merlin congratulated both of the agents on their candidates reaching the final stage. “As tradition allows, you now have 24 hours to spend with them. Eggsy, you should know your father reached this point. From now on, there are no safety nets, understood?”

The psychics exchanged glances and nodded.

“Good. Dismissed.”

All four of them left the room. Eggsy and Roxy briefly touched two of their fingers together, passing silent congratulations and well wishes before they both left with their mentors.

Harry’s home was at the end of a row of converted mews flats in a very high-class neighbourhood. Eggsy had only been in the area once, for breaking and entering, though fortunately not in the spy’s flat. He was pretty sure that if he’d tried, Harry’s security system would have killed him.

He settled into the man’s guest room (though he peeked into the master suite and saw the bed he’d glimpsed in Harry’s mind) before joining the spy in his study. The walls were papered with headlines from _The Sun_ , and Eggy was able to pluck the info from the spy’s mind but asked anyway. “’To pee or not to pee?’”

“ _That_ was the headline the day after I defused a dirty bomb in Paris.”

“’Germany – 1, England – 5.’”

“Missed that game. I was breaking up an undercover spy ring at the Pentagon.”

Eggsy skimmed the rest of the headlines, eyes lingering on “Judge and the Rent Boy.” A visual accompanied it, this time one of his own: Harry in a posh magistrate’s office, seated on a high-backed leather chair with Eggsy in his lap. Both of them were only undressed enough so the younger could ride the gentleman’s cock, hands gripping the back of the chair for support, Harry’s hands on his waist.

He picked the headline in the furthest corner of the den to help hide his half-hard cock while he fought it down.

“My first mission,” said Harry, unaware of the telepath’s predicament, “Foiled the assassination of Margaret Thatcher.”

“Not everybody’d thank you for that one.” He padded over to the only other chair in the room and sat down.

“The point is, Eggsy, nobody thanked me for any of them,” the spy responded, looking around at the pages, “Front page news on all these occasions was celebrity nonsense, because it’s the nature of Kingsman that our achievements remain secret.” He looked back at the telepath. “A gentleman’s name should appear in the newspaper only three times: when he’s born, when he marries, and when he dies. And we are, first and foremost, gentlemen.”

“That’s me fucked, then-“

Another flash of a half-formed image in the other man’s mind – Eggsy saw himself stripped naked and bent over Harry’s desk, wrists bound with the man’s tie, his whole body lax with orgasm. The spy’s hands were holding his arsecheeks apart, his hole flushed pink and swollen with a trail of semen leaking free –

“Well, it’s like Charlie said, I’m just a pleb,” the telepath went on as if he hadn’t seen, shifting to hide his erection’s return.

“Nonsense,” Harry refuted, “Being a gentleman has nothing to do with the circumstances of one’s birth. Being a gentleman is something one learns.”

“Yeah, but _how?_ ”

“All right, first lesson: you should have asked me before you took a seat.”

Eggsy sighed.

“Second lesson: how to make a proper martini.”

“ _Yes_ , Harry.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter: dream!sex ahoy! I'll try to have it up by the end of the week - it's half-written, but I've got a final for a summer class this week. Also, if someone decides to art for this fic, let me know so I can worship you and encourage my readers to do the same.


	5. The Leave Taking

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oops, I lied. It's not later this week - it's now. Also, the song playing during the dream sex scene is Taylor Swift's "This Love." I highly recommend it.

The two of them spent several hours making and sampling martinis in the elder man’s kitchen. Pulling the info from Harry’s head enabled the telepath to make the drink perfectly the first time, but the subsequent tries were all about building muscle memory. By the time he felt confident in his new skill, both of them were past tipsy, though not quite drunk. Harry, of course, was a consummate professional, not giving away his intoxication at all. Meanwhile, Eggsy knew he was weaving a little when he walked, and certain syllables had a bit of a slur to them when he spoke.

Harry sent him to bed so that he would be well-rested for the next day, saying that he would handle the clean-up. Eggsy sensed more than heard him moving around while he used the man’s shower, then changed and climbed into the guest bed.

The telepath’s shields weakened when he fell asleep, his mind opening a little to the world around him while simultaneously becoming harder to detect due to fewer full-formed thoughts. As a result, when his sleeping mind sensed someone nearby dreaming of him, he followed the silent call and slipped into the dream.

_He was naked on a soft, almost slippery bed, strong hands exploring his figure, teasing ticklish spots and just ghosting over sensitive ones. The hands bypassed his cock entirely as they skimmed their way down his front, brushing down his inner thighs instead and shifting to cup his calves, briefly massaging the muscle. Eggsy moaned unhappily and opened his eyes to growl, “Harry, Galahad, you bastard, stop teasing!”_

_“You know you enjoy it, my dear Lancelot,” the spy murmured in reply, audible over the slow music playing in the background. It wasn’t purely classical, Eggsy knew; he could hear female vocals and a more modern beat, but it wasn’t important. What_ was _important was Harry’s suit melting away with a thought in the hazy world of the dream, baring a scarred but still very fit body. “Besides, we’ve been on separate missions for almost a month – you’ll have to forgive me for wanting to take my time relearning you.”_

 _The telepath groaned and arched up, trying to entice him to move faster. “Want you inside me, dammit! I don’ want fuckin’ slow – I want you_ now! _”_

_“Patience is a virtue,” the elder man admonished, “but I suppose I can indulge you a little.”_

_The scent of sandalwood filled the air, and Eggsy gasped as his lower body was lifted up onto Harry’s lap to give the spy access to him. Fingers teased over his entrance, the tip of one easing inside only to pull out again when he tried to thrust back on it. He whined, but held still like the other man wanted as he was opened up one finger at a time._

_At last, the elder man seemed to think he was ready, because the fingers pulled out of him and he was flipped onto his stomach. He heard the sound of a foil packet being torn open before the hot head of the other man’s cock nudged his hole. Eggsy’s hips were pinned in place by strong hands as Harry sank into him with torturous slowness, the spy ignoring his curses and cries for more. That set the pace for his thrusts, too – steady and deep, but slow, enough to make his arousal build without becoming enough for him to get off despite the slick silk rubbing against his cock._

_“You’re so beautiful like this, Eggsy,” Harry murmured in his ear, pressing his body up against the full length of the younger man, “If I were not such a jealous man, I’d want to show the whole world how beautiful you are. But as it is, I want to hide you away and keep you all to myself.”_

_Eggsy chuckled, then gasped as the man’s shift enabled him to drive hard against his prostate. “Show me a better performance,” he shot back, turning to grin cheekily at the man over his shoulder, “an' maybe I’d let you.”_

_“Don’t bait me like that, boy,” Harry growled, his gentlemanly façade slipping as he gripped Eggsy’s hips tight enough to bruise, “I might just take you up on that.”_

_His pace sped up considerably after that, one hand going up to brace against the headboard. The telepath gasped sharply with each slap of their hips, each push of Harry’s cock over that sensitive little gland inside him, and felt the pleasure rise precipitously. He was almost… there… He just needed a little more…_

_He reached back to cup Harry’s jaw and established a telepathic feedback loop between them – and groaned sharply in unison with the elder spy. He could feel Harry feeling what it was like to be fucked by his own cock, felt how hot and tight his own hole was around the man’s shaft, the warmth of his own hand against the other’s face, the solidity of his hipbone in the other man’s hand. Harry thrust once more while Eggsy moved his other hand to his chest, tweaking a nipple –_

_And then they were both crashing through orgasm, shouting each other’s names, the pleasure reflecting between them and continuing to build until Eggsy had to break the connection or risk them both passing out. As it was, they both laid limp on the sheets, limbs too shaky to move, for several minutes before Harry managed to pull out and roll off of his back. Eggsy turned his head to look at the man, and smiled softly when a gentle hand cupped his cheek._

_“I think I love you, my dear boy.”_

Eggsy jerked awake at the same time Harry did, the man’s alarm startling them both even though only one of them actually heard it. He laid panting on the bed, acutely aware of the drying mess in his pyjamas, and stared at the ceiling as he heard the shower start up. He brushed the elder man’s mind, felt his distress over the dream – it wasn’t that Harry didn’t want him, but more the impropriety of such a relationship, especially at their current stage. Eggsy was his protégé first and foremost, and he didn’t want to take advantage of the authority that relationship gave him.

His age was also a major concern, which the telepath had already thought would be. The man was over twice his age, there were bound to be problems with the generation gap, but Eggsy figured that they could work through them easier than other couples because of his abilities. He would be able to see where the other man was coming from, draw on his experience to understand and in turn make sure Harry understood him, too.

There were other problems concerning his age, too – being twice his age meant that the man was also more likely to die sooner, though that meant next to nothing in their chosen line of work. With the correct (or perhaps more accurately, incorrect) series of missions, Harry could outlive him by twenty years.

He withdrew to mediate a little, order his thoughts the way he was supposed to have done last night before he went to bed, but he had been a little too tipsy to focus. His meditation was close enough to sleep that it fooled Harry when the man finally got out of the shower, dressed, and glanced in on him on his way downstairs to start breakfast.

* * *

“So are you gonna teach me how ta talk proper like in _My Fair Lady_?”

“Don’t be absurd,” Harry responded as they strolled leisurely down the street toward the Kingsman shop, “Being a gentleman has nothing to do with one’s _accent_. It’s about being at ease in one’s own skin. As Hemingway said, ‘There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man. True nobility is being superior to your former self.’”

Eggsy paused briefly outside the shop, frowning as Harry went inside. There was a trained mind inside, not another telepath, thank God, but a technopath, someone who could manipulate computers and machinery with their mind –

_Richmond Valentine._

The telepath tensed, then quickly moved to follow the spy inside. Valentine knew how to work his mind, knew how to detect most intrusions unless they were subtle, and Eggsy didn’t dare cause a scene in the shop with Arthur nearby. He focused on Harry’s words while simultaneously keeping an eye on the technopath in the fitting room.

“Now, the first thing every gentleman needs is a good suit, by which I mean a _bespoke_ suit, never off the peg,” said the spy, running his fingers over the display fabric folded on the tables, “And Kingsman suits are always bulletproof. So let’s get you measured, and then, whether you get the job or not, you’ll have a lasting and… _useful_ memento of your time at Kingsman.” He turned to approach the door to Fitting Room One.

“I’m so sorry, sir, but a gentleman is completing his fitting. Fitting Room Two is available.”

Harry turned back to Eggsy. “One does not use Fitting Room Two when one is popping one’s cherry.”

A poor choice of words, but it hardly mattered since both of their minds conjured up almost the exact same image: the two of them facing the fitting room mirror, half-dressed, Harry helping Eggsy fuck himself on his cock as they watched their reflections move together.

“Perhaps I’ll show you Fitting Room Three while we wait,” the spy went on, a consummate professional in concealing reactions to perverted thoughts as all other things, and led the way over to another door.

“So’re we goin’ up or down?” Eggsy asked when they were both standing in front of the mirror, pointedly not dipping into the man’s mind so he could actually be suitably surprised.

“Neither.”

“This it?”

“Of course not. Pull the hook on your left.”

Eggsy did so, heard the clicking and whirring as the door opened into the Kingsman armoury. Immediately beyond the door was an emergency medical station, complete with a sink and a compact shower. Further in were displays of various Kingsman gear: guns, umbrellas, laptops and tablets, clothes and shoes, briefcases, pens, lighters… It was amazing how much they could store in the little shop.

“Now you’re going to need a pair of shoes to go with your suit,” said Harry, moving over to the display, “An Oxford is any formal shoe with open lacing. This additional decorative piece is called broguing.”

“’Oxfords, not brogues,’” Eggsy recalled with a hint of a grin.

“Words to live by, Eggsy. Words to live by.” The spy chose a set from the display. “Try a pair.” As the telepath took a seat, he added, “Your weapons scores are excellent, by the way.”

Eggsy clicked his tongue in response.

“These you’re familiar with,” Harry said, gesturing to the umbrellas on display, “and this is our standard-issue pistol. It’s quite unique. As you’ll see, it also fires a shotgun cartridge for use in messy close-range situations.” He turned back to the telepath. “How do they feel?”

“Yeah, good.”

“Now do your very best impersonation of a German aristocrat’s formal greeting.”

Eggsy had no idea what he was talking about and he didn’t want to stop watching Valentine to find out, so he just imitated the salute from the Third Reich.

“No, Eggsy.” Harry clicked his heels together, and a small blade was unsheathed at the tip of his shoe.

“That is sick.” Eggsy looked down to watch as he did the same.

“In the old days, they had a phone in the heel as well,” Harry added, watching him play around with a few kicks.

“How do I get it back in?”

“Well, it’s coated in one of the fastest-acting neurotoxins known to man, so… _very_ carefully.” He used the wall to push it back in, and the telepath mimicked the action. As Eggsy sat back down to switch back to his winged street shoes, the spy pulled a pen from the display. “Now, I’ve had a lot of fun with this. One of our finest examples of chemical engineering. A poison, harmless when ingested, but at a time convenient to you can be remotely activated.” He pulled down a latch on the pen – “Primed.” – then flipped it back up. “Lethal.”

“And what about these?” Eggsy asked, choosing one of the lighters and turning it over in his hands, “What do these do? Electrocute you?”

“Don’t be ridiculous. It’s a hand grenade.”

His gaze snapped back up to the spy. _“Shut up.”_

“You want to electrocute someone, you’ll need a signet ring.” He pointed to them. “A gentleman traditionally wears the signet on his left hand, but a Kingsman wears it on whichever hand happens to be dominant. Touch the contact behind the ring – it delivers 50,000 volts.”

“An’ what about them?” Eggsy waved to the laptops and tablets on the opposite wall. “What’ makes them so special?”

“Nothing. That technology has caught up with the spy world.” Harry turned to go. “Put it back, Eggsy.”

The telepath cursed softly under his breath and put the lighter back on the shelf with the others before following his mentor out.

Richmond Valentine finished his fitting just as they returned to the public part of the shop, looking incredibly well-dressed in his formal attire despite the addition of his snapback. He noticed them right away as he stepped out of the fitting room, calling, “Mr DeVere! What a coincidence!”

Though he let nothing on, Eggsy felt Harry tense up and silently offered his support.

“You are _totally_ the reason I’m here,” the billionaire went on, “When you left my house, I was thirsting for that dope-ass smoking jacket you had on, and since I’m going to Royal Ascot, and apparently you need one of these penguin suits, here I am! What are you doin’ here?” Then he noticed Eggsy. “What’s up, man?” He offered the telepath his hand. “Richmond Valentine.”

Eggsy shook, and bowed his head a little in a show of respect, mimicking what he pulled from Harry’s mind. “This is my new valet,” said the spy, “I was just introducing him to my tailor.”

“Another coincidence – so am I.” Gazelle stepped up to his side. Eggsy knew there were blades concealed in her prosthetics and didn’t dare try to infiltrate Valentine’s mind for yet another reason – if he was detected, Gazelle would be all over him and Harry both the instant the twisted billionaire gave the word.

As Harry turned to follow the technopath and his devotee out of the shop, the telepath caught his sleeve. “Be careful,” he whispered, “I don’ like him at all. He feels… _wrong._ ”

* * *

Eggsy felt the low burn of Harry’s anger and disappointment long before the car even got close to the man’s flat, before he saw him standing on his balcony with the tablet controlling the taxi in hand. The look on his face made it worse, but Eggsy refused to grovel, no matter how much he might have been in love with the man.

“You throw away your biggest opportunity over a fucking dog,” Harry said as he descended the stairs to join his protégé on the ground floor, “And then you humiliate me by stealing my boss’s car.”

“You shot a dog jus’ to get a fucking job,” Eggsy snapped back, glad he hadn’t looked into the man’s mind for details on the test. He was pretty sure he’d have flipped his lid and given himself and his abilities away.

“Yes, I did,” Harry admitted, striding over to the water closet and opening the door to reveal he’d had the canine stuffed, too, “And Mr. Pickle reminds me of that every time I take a shit.”

The younger man had known he was quirky – the unusual structure of his thoughts alone told him that – but _this?_ “You shot your dog and had it stuffed?” he asked incredulously, “You fucking freak.”

“No, I shot my dog, and then I brought him home and continued to care for him for the next eleven years until he died of pancreatitis.”

Eggsy saw snippets of the events play out in Harry’s thoughts, but he picked up on one thing in particular. “Your dog died ‘cause you kept feeding ‘im from the table?”

A hint of embarrassment flashed through the man’s mind, but it was gone just as fast. “That’s not the point! It was a _blank_ , Eggsy. It was a fucking blank.”

“ _I knew that_ ,” the younger man hissed, ire beginning to rise as he realized that his final test had been rigged against him, “but with as close as Arthur had me to JB, he was gonna died anyway ‘cause of the air pressure from the shot! It was all I could get from him, all he could think about – how he’d use that to disqualify me ‘cause ‘oh, he don’t know that blanks can still be fatal from inside a metre, _clearly_ Galahad didn’t choose wisely,’ how he’d get off on the expression on my face when I saw! I weren’t gonna give him the satisfaction!” Eggsy’s body sagged as his anger spent itself and drained away. “I knew that either way I was gonna disappoint you, he was gonna humiliate you, so I chose to do it the way I could live with.”

The elder man’s expression softened a little with mixed realization and sympathy. Then he frowned, replaying Eggsy’s words. “’It was all he could think about?’” he repeated.

Eggsy didn’t need to look in the mirror to know that he had gone white as a sheet. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to tell Harry about his powers, quite the contrary. He wanted to use them to help the spy and the other Kingsmen, but _not_ while the current Arthur was in charge.

He was saved by the bell. More specifically, the quiet beeping of Harry’s glasses. _“Harry, listen to this,”_ said Merlin, unaware that Eggsy was silently blessing him and all his descendants, _“Valentine’s at last saying something of note.”_

The lisping billionaire’s voice came over the line. _“Know what I love about pen and paper? Nobody can hack into this shit. Our worldwide tour was a complete success. We - have total coverall. Like when all your numbers in bingo are crossed out.”_

 _“Bingo?”_ A female voice – Gazelle.

 _“Bingo. The game. You_ have _played bingo, right?”_

_“Do I look like I play bingo?”_

Rustling movement. _“Point is, if our tests go well at the church tomorrow, we are good to go.”_

“South Glade Mission Church,” Harry murmured, looking out the bathroom window, “Merlin, get the plane ready.”

_“Will do.”_

Eggsy dropped his gaze as the spy turned around, waiting for the man’s judgement. Harry sighed, then stepped forward to pull him into an embrace. The telepath curled his fingers in the soft fabric of his cardigan, took a soft sniff of his cologne as he buried his face in the crook of the man’s neck. “Stay here,” the elder instructed softly, “You’ll be safe. I’ll sort this mess out when I get back.”

The younger nodded, and received a small squeeze before the elder stepped back and left the water closet. Eggsy drifted out after him, still feeling a little spacey from his violent mood swings, and waited on the landing while Harry changed into one of his pristine bespoke suits. The man came down the stairs once more, gave him a one-armed hug (the other hand holding his weaponized umbrella), and then departed. The telepath wandered the flat for a little bit, briefly snacking on some crackers and ham from the fridge, and called to check on his mum. She was doing fine, and recognized that he was out of it, instructing him to go take a nap.

Eggsy did as he was told, trudging up the stairs to Harry’s room and toeing off his trainers before collapsing on the bed. It was very comfortable, and he barely had time to get his whole body on the bed before he passed out.

* * *

_Something’s wrong._

Eggsy had long ago learned to trust his instincts, something most people had learned to ignore or forgotten entirely. They had served him well where his powers were concerned, letting him know when he was reaching his limits, when he needed to find a nice quiet park, close himself off, and just sit and decompress from all the bullshit pouring through his head every day.

So when he woke up with his instincts screaming that something was horribly, _horribly_ wrong, he listened.

“Harry.”


	6. Isengard Unleashed

When Eggsy was five years old, his father took him and his mother to the beach during one of the hottest summers on record. Once they had set up their chairs, towels, and umbrellas on the sand, Eggsy raced for the water with a whoop of delight and jumped into the surf.

And the world around him exploded.

Voices, so many voices, talking, whispering, shouting all at once. Here, two parents swinging their little girl and throwing her out into the waves amidst her squeals of delight – the father was thinking about how he would much rather be back in the city with his mistress. Further south along the coast, a man fishing for bass had fallen from his boat but was in the process of climbing back on, cursing his ill luck. He could hear other languages, too; people on the coasts of Belgium, France, Spain, Portugal. So many people’s thoughts tumbling into his head from up and down the coasts of the UK and Western Europe. He screamed and stumbled back out of the surf –

-And it was gone, only a vague echo left behind.

His father told him later that water – any kind, but especially saltwater – amplified their abilities, focused them. On their own, Lee’s powers weren’t nearly strong enough to clearly pick up the thoughts of someone more than twenty metres away. Fully immersed in the briny sea, he could exactly pinpoint everyone in a two-kilometre radius. It stood to reason that it was the same for Eggsy, whose powers were entire orders of magnitude stronger, but Lee hadn’t had time to warn him before he’d found that out for himself.

Eggsy had never been more grateful for the knowledge when he tore through Harry’s house. There wasn’t enough time for him to even explain why he needed to get to the sea, much less actually get there, so he would have to substitute. He ripped open Harry’s pantry to search for – aha! One of those huge containers of salt that most cooks had. He grabbed it and a knife and thundered up the stairs to the master bathroom, where a lovely claw-foot tub waited.

While the water was running, heating up, he dug under the counter. A half-empty container of bath salts – good enough. That would bring the salt content up to almost the ideal proportions. He plugged the drain, poured the salts into the tub, and began to strip as it filled.

Talisman. Shit, shit, shit, he needed a talisman, something that carried Harry’s mental imprint to focus on so he could reach the man across the ocean, rather than listen to everyone in Western Europe dick around. That was how he wound up sprinting back into the spy’s bedroom while bare-arse naked, scrambling for something, _anything_ , to use as a medium.

Clothes. Good enough. He grabbed a handful of the man’s ties, sprinted downstairs for his laptop, then ran back to the bathroom like his life depended on it. He turned off the water and tied one tie around his neck in a perfect Windsor knot while he was waiting for the laptop to boot up, wrapping two more around his wrists. With the laptop set up on the loo where he could see the feed from Harry’s glasses, Eggsy climbed into the tub and immersed himself fully for a minute, repeating Harry’s words from the Black Prince as a mantra to centre his mind and help him focus on the man.

“Manners. Maketh. Man. Manners maketh man, manners maketh man…”

He shifted himself in the water so that his upper body was on the end of the tub closest to the laptop, giving him the best view of the feed, and reached out with his mind.

Eggsy knew the man’s mind, recognized its “flavour,” its roll and tug after guiding him out of his coma one step at a time. It wasn’t perfect – there were limits to what he could do with the link he established – but he connected with his mentor’s mind from across the Atlantic, from one-sixth of the way around the world.

Harry was leaving the church, but something was setting him off, _pissing_ him off, even as he fought for control – Eggsy could feel it.

/Harry!/

The spy stopped in front of the church doors, and not because of the woman shouting at him. “E-Eggsy?” he managed, barely.

/Yeah, it’s me! Bruv, you’ve gotta get out a’ there! Somethin’ is _seriously_ wrong!/

“I c-can’t…” His hand was going for his gun even as his conscious mind fought against the rising tide of aggression and bloodlust.

/I can help ya, but ya gotta work with me, not against me!/

Harry’s aim would have been impeccable if Eggsy hadn’t jerked his arm to the side at the last second. The bullet slammed into a man’s calf, and the gunshot seemed to have been the signal for violence. The churchgoers turned on one another immediately. Some had concealed weapons already on them, some improvised, others fought with their bare hands. Eggsy did what he could to help minimize fatalities without compromising his mentor’s safety, twitching his body this way and that to alter bullet trajectories, avoid fatal blows in hand-to-hand, relying on the video feed from Harry’s glasses for a visual rather than sacrificing power to see through his eyes.

The spy worked with him as much as he was able, pushing when he did to avert a killing blow then falling back to gather strength for the next push, conserving energy. It would have drained them both too much to fight for continuous control.

The last of the churchgoers, the minister ranting about the evils of mankind, fell to the ground, leaving the church quiet at last. Or, as quiet as if could be with half its congregation injured and groaning on the floor of the sanctuary. The other half had been killed, mostly by their own, but half alive was better than none.

The bloodlust receded. ‘I expect a full explanation when I get back to England, Eggsy,’ he though finally realizing that his protégé’s voice was mental rather than physical.

/You get back, and I’ll tell ya everythin’ you wanna know,/ he promised, /but ya gotta get _back_ , first./

The spy hummed in acknowledgement, stumbling a little as he made for the doors to the narthex. Some of the survivors grabbed at his ankles as he passed, pleading for help, but he ignored them. Someone would have heard the shots, called the police. The EMTs would be right behind them.

Valentine, his amputee girlfriend, and two suits with guns were waiting outside the church.

/Oh shit./

‘Quite.’ Harry took a few steps forward and raised his hands to show that all his weapons were spent. “What did you do to me?” he asked quietly, “I had almost no control. I almost _killed_ all those people. I _wanted_ to.”

“Clever, isn’t it?” Valentine responded, unaware that six and a half thousand kilometres away, Eggsy was having a seizure-like fit in Harry’s bath as he forced his power to the limit and beyond, leaving his mentor to start creeping into the billionaire’s mind, “In simple terms, it’s a neurological wave that triggers the centres of aggression and switches off inhibitors. I’m impressed at your self-control under those circumstances.” He said it like he was narrating a BBC special or teaching a group of year 1 students, dispassionate and clinical, as if more than thirty people hadn’t just died as a result.

“And the wave is transmitted through your nasty, free SIM cards, I assume.”

Valentine dropped his arm from around Gazelle’s shoulders to approach the agent. “Do you know what this is like?” he asked, “It’s like those old movies we both love.”

He was going to kill Harry. Eggsy let out a scream that echoed off the walls of the bathroom.

_No one can survive a shot to the head, but I really don’t wanna see all that blood. Maybe I can look away at the last second?_

Unseeing, the telepath’s eyes widened. A neurosis, haemophobia - he could work with this. It gave him an easy in.  _No,_ he whispered into Valentine’s mind, _that won’t work. He’ll take advantage if I look away before I pull the trigger – he’s too good_ not _to. He fought the waves enough to avoid killing, after all; this guy’s got some serious training. Why not the heart instead? He can’t survive without a heart either, and I can watch that ‘cause the dark suit’ll hide the blood. Besides, there’s a reason they call it “blowing someone’s brains out.”_

“Well, this ain’t that kind of movie.” And then Valentine unloaded three bullets into the spy’s chest right around his heart, turning away as he fell.

Eggsy began to let go of Valentine slowly, painfully slowly so his presence wasn’t noticed. The billionaire asked, “Is he dead?”

“That tends to happen when you shoot someone three times through the heart,” Gazelle responded, “It feels good, right?”

“No, no, it does not feel good. It feels fucking awful.”

“What? You just killed how many people in that church? This is one guy.”

“No, no, no, they killed each other,” he insisted, then sighed. “Okay, send out the countdown clock. This party starts – tomorrow.” Having regained his composure, he walked away with girlfriend and goons in tow.

Eggsy hesitantly reached for his mentor once more, hardly daring to hope. /Harry?/

‘…’

/ **Harry??** /

‘…’m here…’

A world away, Eggsy began to sob in mixed fear and relief, unashamed that the man could feel it. /How bad is it?/ he demanded, /D’you need to go to the A&E or whatever the Americans call it?/

‘…no…’ Harry managed to hold his breath off and on until the sounds of Valentine’s cars faded from hearing. Eggsy peripherally registered Merlin and Arthur logging off of the feed, no doubt believing him dead now that the glasses were askew and couldn’t pick up his continued heartbeat. ‘…I believe I have… some broken ribs now… but the bullets did not penetrate…’

/Okay. Okay. Get to a hospital or tape yourself up or whatever, and then get yourself up into the mountains or out west, anywhere away from mobile phones and towers./ Eggsy could feel the power slipping from his grasp, weakening as he approached his absolute limit. /Rox, Merlin, and I’ll stop this. Somehow./

‘Good luck…’

Eggsy forced himself up out of the water and stumbled over to the towel rack, catching a glimpse of himself in the mirror. His nose had started bleeding heavily at some point, and his skin was almost alarmingly pale as a result. With his bloodshot eyes, he looked like someone who had just watched his dearest friend die.

He dried off while the tub drained, then redressed in his street clothes and chugged a glass of orange juice before speeding off to Savile Row.


	7. The Treason of Isengard

“Arthur, Harry’s dead.”

“ _Galahad_ is dead,” the man corrected, proving that both he and Merlin believed the man to be dead, or that he would be soon. “Hence, we had just drunk a toast to him.”

“Well, then you know what tha’ psycho’s doin’. How many people around the world’ve got those SIM cards? Valentine can send his signal to any of them, _all_ of them. If they all go homicidal at the same time, then-“

“Indeed,” Arthur interrupted, “And thanks to Galahad’s recordings, we have Valentine’s confession. The intelligence has been passed on to the relevant authorities. Our work is complete, and a most distinguished legacy for our fallen friend it is, too.”

 _He’s lying._ Even with his powers so weak after the strain of reaching across an ocean, Eggsy could tell the man was lying. He wasn’t sure if it was that weakness or something else, but he still couldn’t get a good read on the man. He played along anyway, not wanting to stress his mind further in case he _really_ needed his powers later. “An’ that’s it?”

“Come and sit down, boy.” Arthur gestured to the chair immediately to his right. As he moved to take a seat, the elder man continued, pointing to the decanter in front of him, “ _This_ is an 1815 Napoleonic brandy, and we only drink it when we lose a Kingsman. Galahad was very fond of you.” He leaned forward to grab the decanter and poured a measure into both glasses in front of him.

That allowed Eggsy to clearly see the surgery scar behind his ear, just like the one on Professor Arnold and Valentine’s assistant. His eyes narrowed a hair. Even though it cost him, adding to his already splitting headache, he probed outward and determined that it was whatever Valentine had put into Arthur that was interfering with his ability.

“And on this occasion,” Arthur went on, not realizing what Eggsy had learned, “I think it’s acceptable for us to bend the rules a little.” He set the decanter back on the tray.

“These all Kingsmen?” Eggsy asked, leaning forward to point at the portraits across the table. He gave another push, convincing Arthur to turn completely away while he switched their glasses – _He may be Galahad’s candidate, but he’s still no threat, just a boy._

“Yes, they’re, uh, founder members. They began the tradition.”

Eggsy looked thoughtful despite his “sorrow.” “Good one to have.”

“I want you to join me in a toast.” He handed Eggsy the glass nearest to him, the one originally meant for Arthur himself. “To Galahad.” They tapped their glasses together.

“To Galahad,” Eggsy repeated, making sure that Arthur started drinking before he did. The brandy was smooth, so very smooth and warm, and it took the edge off his headache, though he knew it would only get worse later. “Harry says you don’t like to break rules, Arthur,” the telepath said, leaning back in his chair and hoping the man didn’t catch his present-tense Freudian slip, “Why now?”

“You’re very good, Eggsy,” the other man acknowledged, “Perhaps I will make you my proposal for Galahad’s position. Provided, of course, that we can see eye-to-eye on certain political matters.” He picked up a pen, a very familiar pen. “Can you guess,” he asked as he primed it, “what this is?”

“I don’t have to,” Eggsy responded, using the pain from his headache to keep his smugness from showing, “Harry showed me. You click it, I die. I thought tha’ brandy tasted a bit _shit_.”

Arthur chuckled. “Bravo.”

“Valentine won you over – somehow.”

“Once he explained, I understood.” He repeated Valentine’s analogy of the fever, virus, and its host. “Either way, the result is the same. The virus dies.”

“So Valentine’s gonna take care of the population problem ‘imself.”

“Well, if we don’t do something, nature will,” Arthur replied, “Sometimes a culling is the only way to ensure that the species survives. And history will see Valentine as the man who saved humanity from extinction.”

“An’ he gets to pick and choose who gets _culled_ , does ‘e? All ‘is rich mates, they get ta live, an’ anyone he thinks is worth savin’, he’s _keepin’_ them safe, whether they agree with ‘im or not.”

“And you,” said Arthur, “Eggsy. In Harry’s honour, I am inviting you to be a part of a new world. It’s time to make your decision.”

He didn’t even have to think about it. “I’d rather be with Harry,” he answered, “Thanks.” And _God_ , wasn’t that the truth? He wanted to be across the pond with the man, making sure that he was okay and got to a safe location before everything went to shit. He didn’t really give two shits about anyone else, aside from his mum and sis and Merlin and Rox. And JB, of course.

“So be it,” said Arthur, and clicked the pen to trigger the poison.

Eggsy remained relaxed in his chair, waiting until Arthur’s body started falling victim to the toxins before saying, “The problem with us common types _is_ that we’re light-fingered.” He picked up the tiny glass. “Kingsman’s taught me a lot, but sleight of hand…” He leaned in. “I had that down already.”

“You dirty little fucking prick,” Arthur hissed, and slumped against the table.

Eggsy used the sharp tip of the pen to cut open the scar behind the dead man’s ear. Out of it he pulled a small circuit board attached to a long wire. He peered at it, nose wrinkled in disgust, when the man’s mobile buzzed.

An alert from Valentine, saying that “V-Day” was starting in T-minus six hours, and that they should get to a safe zone or fly to somewhere in north-western Russia. As places went, it was a pretty good one to hide.

/Rox./

<Eggsy?>

/I’m comin’ out to HQ./

He took the phone and the wire and hopped into the shuttle to Hertfordshire.

Merlin and Roxy were waiting for him, and though he resented having a gun pulled on him, he understood the necessity. He waited until Merlin cleared him to lower his hands. “Arthur’s phone is receiving update texts about getting to safety,” said the tech wizard, “We don’t have a lot of time.”

“What’re you gonna do?”

“Question is, what are _we_ gonna do?” the man corrected, “God knows who’s in Valentine’s pocket and who’s not.”

Eggsy did, but he wouldn’t be able to tell until later. God _damn_ , he needed to rest.

“We’ve no choice,” the man went on, “We’re gonna have to deal with this ourselves.”

The two junior agents exchanged glances.

“Follow me.”

* * *

While Merlin and Roxy prepared the plane for the mission, Eggsy tossed back twice as many painkillers as recommended and chugged more orange juice and a gallon of water before passing out on the comfortable tartan couch inside the cabin. As a result, he missed the take-off, most of the flight, and Merlin explaining about the trans-atmospheric vehicle, but it was impossible to miss the plane making a bouncy landing on Russia’s icy tundra. He jerked awake as the jet rolled to a stop, making a face at his morning breath before stumbling for the in-flight loo. He had only gotten a couple hours of sleep, but even that made a huge difference; his head felt so much better, and he could properly use his powers again, though he limited the radius to prevent his headache from coming back.

While Roxy finished getting into her kit, Merlin took the time to examine the circuit board Eggsy had brought. “It seems the implant can emit some kind of counter-signal to ensure the wearer remains unaffected by the waves from the SIM cards,” he muttered to himself.

“The waves that turn everyone into a psycho killer.”

“Quite,” he responded, “But what he probably didn’t tell anyone is that it can also superheat their soft tissue at his command. Valentine selected his chosen few to get the countdown warning, but he had to be sure they didn’t blab to the wrong people beforehand.”

“How does this help us right now?” Eggsy asked before rinsing his mouth.

“It doesn’t,” Merlin said bluntly, then called, “Roxy, here we go!”

Both men helped her get strapped into the TAV and started the helium balloons inflating. “The higher you go,” said the tech wizard, “the more the balloons expand. When you reach the edge of the atmosphere, they’ll explode. You’ll need to deploy your missile just before that, okay?”

She nodded, looking a little pale as she repeated, “The edge of the atmosphere.”

“Once you’ve deployed, you’ll need to release for descent _fast_.” Eggsy sensed that the man wanted to say more, but dared not. “Good luck.”

As Merlin returned to the plane, Eggsy stepped up. “You can do this, okay?” he said, giving Roxy’s hands a squeeze and reaching out to project his confidence in her.

“Yeah.” She didn’t feel nearly as confident as he did, but accepted his faith in her nonetheless.

“Eggsy, come on! Time is not our friend.”

He patted Roxy’s foot as she ascended past him and joined Merlin back on the plane. He could feel her anxiety and soothed her as much as he could before she passed out of range.

“You’re getting in on Arthur’s invitation,” Merlin informed him, digging though one of the plane’s compartments, “You’re gonna need to blend in.

“I’m supposed to be _Arthur?_ ” How was he, a 25-year-old not-spy -?

“His invitation’s in his phone,” the mission handler explained, handing him the device, “Give them this, give his real name: Chester King.”

“What about you?”

“I’m your pilot, I’m gonna stay here.”

Eggsy pursed his lips, then pointed to the leather case Merlin carried. “Is that gonna fit me?”

“A bespoke suit always fits,” Merlin informed him, handing it over, “Just be grateful Harry had it made for you. Get dressed.”

The telepath ducked into the loo, stripped, and pulled on the suit, piece by pristine and custom-tailored piece. Over the com link in his new glasses, he said, “Rox, it’s me. How’s the view?”

 _“Hideous,”_ was the reply.

“Mine’s pretty sweet,” he admitted, “They made you one of these suits yet?”

_“No, not yet.”_

“You’ve got something to look forward to, then. We’re coming up on Valentine’s base. Gotta go. Good luck.” They were still several minutes out, so he asked, “Merlin, can you patch me through to Harry’s glasses?”

“Eggsy-“

“Please.”

The man sighed but did as he asked. Then Eggsy heard him gasp when the visual came through: Harry Hart, very much alive, his back turned to his glasses, binding his ribs with a thick layer of gauze. He might have been over fifty but he still looked _damned_ good, and Eggsy took the split second before Harry responded to his glasses’ chime to admire the flex of his muscles.

Then he turned and _hot damn he was fit_ – wait, no, shit, shit, shit, bad time to be getting a stiffy. “Hey, boss,” he said, trying for casual, “Getting’ ready to enter the lions’ den. Any advice to give your student?”

“Focus on stopping Valentine,” the man replied, “Given the scale of his plans, everything else is secondary, even the safety of civilians inside.”

“Aye, aye, sir,” the telepath answered, saluting in the mirror, “You holed up somewhere safe?”

“Indeed.” Harry turned to he could see the rest of the lodge. It had clearly been very nice, judging by the quality of the furniture, but now every scrap had been moved to cover exterior doors and windows. An illegal mobile phone signal jammer was sitting atop the battery pack powering it, and all of Harry’s acquired kit was laid out next to it, ready for a fight. “It’s not exactly the most secure position,” he admitted, “but very few of the other lodges are rented out, and there’s almost no phone service.”

“Good,” said Eggsy. He shuffled a little, then decided to push through, in case he didn’t make it. “Harry, you remember what we was talkin’ about, ‘fore you left?”

“Yes.”

“If it had been you, to give the order I mean, I’da done it.” But there his courage ended. Eggsy shut off the link before the other man could respond and went to join Merlin in the cockpit.

“ _That man_ _has more lives than a fucking cat_ ,” the Scotsman growled when Eggsy leaned over his shoulder to peer through the windscreen. Then he sighed. “I hope you know what you’re doing.”

The younger man didn’t need to read his mind to know that he wasn’t talking about Valentine. “So do I.”


	8. Battle for the Mountain

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I should really be studying for my final~

Valentine had a _lot_ of men guarding his secret lair, ostensibly to protect the VIPs within, but they could just as easily be turned against the people they were guarding if the billionaire gave the order. Eggsy couldn’t detect any psy-actives amongst the soldiers, but there might have been a few who were hiding. Only time would tell.

Merlin brought the plane down on the runway inside the cave system, then called, “Eggsy, we’re on,” when they rolled to a halt.

The telepath put on his best posh impression, drawn from the collective memories of all the Kingsmen he’d encountered, including a cheeky remark to Merlin, calling him Mycroft. It was enough to fool Valentine’s assistant before she let him through the halls. She did have a power, though it was relatively minor: she could dowse, find things psychically, and with a fair degree of accuracy, too.

 _“Eggsy,”_ said Merlin over his earpiece, _“find a laptop, get me online. The clock is ticking. And remember, try to blend in.”_

The telepath ordered and accepted a drink from one of the servers, hunting for a mind that knew it had a laptop, finally spotting a Swedish dignitary with one on the upper deck. He made small talk with the man to distract him while he infiltrated his mind, then knocked him out. “You’re gonna have to be careful, Merlin,” he murmured as he established the connection, “Valentine’s a technopath – the instant he realizes somethin’s wrong, he’s gonna be all over you.”

_“A technopath?”_

“Yeah, he can control computers and machines with his mind.” He reached out, then said directly into the tech wizard’s mind, /Trust me, I’d know./

Eggsy caught a glimpse of a computer screen in his mind and recognized it as the feed from Harry’s mission. ‘That’s why he said your name in Kentucky, how you know he was still alive,’ the other man realized, ‘You were there with him, in his mind.’

/Yeah. I’ll give you the whole rundown later, but right now you need to be on the lookout./ As Merlin turned his attention away, Eggsy felt a familiar mind approaching.

Very. Familiar.

/Shit./

‘Status?’

/Charlie’s here,/ he growled, quickly shutting down the laptop once he was sure Merlin was in the system, /I’m not gonna be able to get a hold of him fast enough-/

There was a knife at his throat. “Nice and slow,” the Lancelot reject hissed gleefully.

“The fuck are you doin’ here?” Eggsy snapped back, trying to keep him distracted and talking while  he wormed his way into the other’s mind.

“Well, my family were invited, obviously.”

‘Posh git.’

“Now, get the fuck up. Slowly.” Charlie kept the knife at his throat, turning him around to face the technopath and shouting, “Valentine! I’ve caught a fucking spy!”

But then Eggsy got far enough into his mind to drop him like the Swedish prime minister, and tased him with his signet ring for good measure. It didn’t matter, though – Valentine had seen and recognized him, and was putting V-Day on a fast track.

The guards were already on their way, so Eggsy did the only thing he could: run. /Merlin!/ he called as he sprinted through the stark halls, /Valentine’s usin’ a biometric system, keyed to his handprint!/

‘Son of a bitch!’ the tech wizard cursed, ‘I can’t hack that!’

/Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck-/ The telepath pulled out his pistol and shot the two guards who tried to cut of his escape. /Merlin, I can’t – I can’t get control of anyone if I don’t have time to concentrate! Is there anythin’ you can do about the guards?/

‘I’m almost done scanning his system – give me a few minutes! Tracking Roxy’s missile-‘

Which would buy them more time, Eggsy knew. Exactly _how much_ time remained to be seen. Valentine could reroute the signal through another satellite independent of its owner’s will, but transmitting through communications satellites meant that they had to be lined up, and the nature of satellites themselves meant they couldn’t be easily moved by even the strongest of technopaths on the ground.

Tech – _technology. Use his own tech against him. The implants._

/Merlin, once you’re good, activate the implants!/

‘Now _that_ I can do!’

Less than a minute later, Eggsy rounded a corner to behold ranks of guards waiting for him. They didn’t even get the chance to shoot – with cliché enthusiasm, their heads all exploded in a shower of meat, blood, and bone.

The telepath dropped to one knee and broke the connection with Merlin to reach out back toward the room where the compliant VIPs had been. They were all dead now; like the guards, he’d felt their minds winking out like lights on his periphery. Valentine and Gazelle were still alive, unfortunately. The technopath was many things, but he wasn’t stupid enough to put one of the implants into himself.

This was going to have to be a hit-and-run. There was no time for subtlety, and if exposing his location to Gazelle meant he could kill Valentine, then Goddammit he was taking that chance. His mind slammed into hers like a battering ram. She had mental defence training, but it wasn’t enough to hold up against him – her shields flickered, and he was in.

In a single continuous action, he deployed the amputee’s blades and destroyed Valentine’s Doomsday Desk with a sharp Axe Kick, then spun her around, switching to the other leg, and took off the crazed billionaire’s head with a Reverse Hook Kick.

The telepath held on long enough to confirm the kill before Gazelle’s rage and grief threw him out of her mind. When  he finally crashed, Eggsy knew he was going to _pay_ for doing so much with his powers and pushing so many limits in such a short amount of time, but he was _not letting that crash happen now_.

Gazelle’s scream of fury echoed through the halls as he began stumbling toward the plane, a renewed migraine throbbing behind his eyes. It was so painful that he could barely see straight, and as a result he relied almost entirely on his spacial awareness of Merlin’s mind to stagger to the plane as fast as he could.

The tech wizard was waiting for him on the steps of the jet, weapon at the ready. “Eggsy, drop!” he shouted, and the telepath did so, the other man firing over him. Gazelle was just as quick as her namesake and darted into cover before any of the bullets could connect. Eggsy sensed her intent and curled up to protect his head, even as he prayed the Kingsman suit would live up to Harry’s “bulletproof” claim.

It did, though the impacts still carried a lot of force behind them – he heard several bones crack, and knew that he’d be turning interesting colours in the near future.

Her handgun clicked empty. Eggsy knew he only had a few second before she reloaded, so he pulled the grenade lighter from his pocket, primed, and threw it her way. The ensuing explosion was far more impressive than it had been on Harry’s visual feed, but the blast only knocked her unconscious.

It was enough. Merlin delivered the final blow, approaching Gazelle carefully and shooting her three times for good measure.

Both of the held still in the ensuing silence, waiting. Then Merlin lowered his weapon. “Congratulations, Eggsy,” he said, “You just saved the world.”

 _“Fantastic,”_ the telepath groaned, and rolled over to press his throbbing forehead against the cool concrete.

* * *

Merlin did a brief loop to pick up Roxy while Eggsy laid where he’d fallen, nearly comatose from pain despite liberal application of painkillers. When the two returned to the base, the tech wizard informed him that a number of Kingsman agents had reported in, panicking (or, as much as they _did_ panic) over finding Arthur’s corpse in the dining room. Percival, Bors, and Tristan were on their way in another of the Kingsman jets, along with at least half of the Kingsman UK staff. He’d also placed a call to Gawain, who had been on a mission in Mexico, and told him to pick up Harry at Louisville International Airport on his way home.

When Eggsy recovered enough to do more than lie on the floor, he began mentally inventorying Valentine’s hostages. In one of the cells, he found his cousin, Amanda Wilcox, attending the actual bloody Queen of England.

/Mandy./

|Rider of Rohan, what news from the Mark? Sounds like you were fighting quite the battle out there. Also, it’s _Amanda_ , Gary.|

/Bitch./

|Knobhead.|

Weak as he was, Eggsy still managed a grin. /You’re good with that public speakin’ shit, right? If I let you out, can you get on the PA an’ let the others know what’s goin’ on? I know some people’re sensitive about dead bodies and stuff, so we got a bit a clean-up to do before we let _everyone_ out./

|Can do.|

And that was how Eggsy, Roxy, and Merlin met the Queen. She was understandably grumpy, but grateful for the rescue. Amanda made her announcement, carefully leaving out any names but saying that they had been rescued, Valentine was dead, and that once certain areas had been cleaned up their rescuers would be letting them out. In the meantime, they would be coming around to check on everyone, and if anyone had medical conditions that needed immediate treatment, please let them know, and make a list of at least two but no more than four emergency contacts to arrange for their return to their home countries.

Merlin took charge in that respect. As befitting the tech wizard of a super-secret spy organization, he had contacts everywhere, and was able to go through the full list by the time the other Kingsman agents arrived.

After that, Eggsy couldn’t stay awake anymore and collapsed in the Kingsman jet, only vaguely aware of his cousin passing along her contact information and telling Merlin to get a hold of her if he stayed out for more than two weeks.


	9. The World Is Ahead

/They stuck you in the saddle, huh, bruv?/ a familiar voice whispered.

Harry looked up from his paperwork, then let out a relieved sigh when he spotted Eggsy peering sleepily at him, the telepath having finally woken from his self-induced coma. “Indeed,” he said aloud, taking the opportunity to pinch the bridge of his nose, “I imagine you’ll be pleased to know that Chester was a right bastard who intended to let Kingsman crumble, because none of the other knights were compromised by Valentine.”

Eggsy’s grin was response enough. /Good riddance,/ the telepath enthused. Then, /How’re you doin’? Your ribs okay? The suits may be bulletproof, but you still take a lot o’ the hit./

“ _I’m_ fine,” the elder agent responded, closing up the file he was reviewing, “ _You_ , less so. You’re on strict bed rest until the medical team clears you for duty, young man.” He ignored Eggsy’s groan. “But you’ll _also_ be pleased to hear that in light of recent events, the Round Table has decided to overlook the failure of your last test. Congratulations, Galahad.”

/Thanks, _Arthur_./ Eggsy grinned again, distinctly needling when the other man mentally sighed at the reminder of his new title and the headaches that came with it. Then the telepath yawned, but fought to stay awake.

“Go back to sleep, Eggsy,” Harry advised, setting aside his paperwork to tuck the younger man in, “A coma is no substitute for real sleep.”

/Cheers, guv,/ he murmured, his mental voice growing slurred. Harry got the vague impression of colors and a musical riff before the connection withered away.

* * *

The next time Eggsy woke, he stayed awake. The Kingsman doctors poked and prodded and, with his permission, took a few brain scans before releasing him into Harry’s care. On the way to the elder man’s flat, the telepath reached out. /Mandy./

|Gary. Nice to see you’re finally awake. Did you get a kiss from your handsome silver fox of a prince, Sleeping Beauty?|

/Bitch./

|Knobhead.|

Both of them grinned. /Just wanted to let you know that I’m up an’ about. No need to go stormin’ UK HQ to smack me awake./

|I might have to come anyway. The rest of the fam’s already passed through, for the annual reunion in Paris. Dad said he picked up on your boss’s worry from twenty kilometers off.|

/Guess I need to start teachin’ people to shield./

|I guess so. Marissa wants to meet your tech dealer, by the way. She says the Kingsman systems are “like sex for the mind.”|

/I’ll pass that along. I’m sure Merlin’d love to work _with_ a technopath, rather than _against_ one this time./

|I bet. Gotta go – Her Majesty is calling.|

/Talk to ya later./

“Interesting conversation?” Harry asked when the telepath refocused on the outside world.

“Sorta. Talkin’ to Mandy, Amanda Wilcox, m’ cousin on me dad’s side.” Eggsy didn’t need to read the elder spy’s mind to know he was calling up her file on their glasses. “She’s attendant to the Queen, and a telekinetic specializin’ in barriers, force fields. Apparently, the fam’s got a long-standing contract with the royals, psychic protection in exchange for secrecy, not bein’ experimented on.”

“She uses her power to detect and deflect physical attacks,” said Harry.

“Yeah, among other things.” Eggsy winced when the rough road jolted his ribs.

“If your father’s family knows about you, why haven’t they tried to help you and your mother?”

“’Cause me dad got disowned an’ the bastard that’d done it is still head o’ the family, yeah? He was supposed to marry some German chick with a ‘fine an’ upstandin’ pedigree,’ only he went an’ fell in love with me mum an’ left the family so he could marry her instead.” As Harry got out of the cab, radiating disapproval, Eggsy continued, “My uncle Greg, Mandy’s dad, he’s next in line as head, an’ he’s already said he’s adoptin’ me back in. Already got the papers drawn up and everythin’ – just waiting on the geezer ta die.”

The disapproval lessened. “And your mother?” Harry asked, supporting him up the steps and into the flat, “What will happen to her?”

“She’s in, too.” The telepath settled onto the man’s couch with a sigh. “My power level well, it ain’t exactly _normal_. Th’ bastard exceptin’, the rest of the fam’d just about bend over backwards to get to claim me as one o’ their own.” He accepted the blanket the elder spy handed him with a murmur of thanks. “An’ a lot of them just plain like me, I guess. They go to this annual reunion-convention think an’ pass through London to get here, so sometimes we’ll meet up while they’re here, have a few drinks.”

“I’m glad you’ve had _someone_ you could depend on, at least.”

“Yeah.” Eggsy listened to Harry’s mental see-sawing for a moment, then said, “Oh for fuck’s sake, come here.”

The spy sat next to him and put an arm around his shoulders. “We should talk about this,” he said, turning his nose into the telepath’s hair.

“Do we have to?”

The elder spy riffled through his arguments, counter-arguments, and counter-counter-arguments, before deciding “fuck it” and mentally throwing the cards into the air. “I suppose it can wait.”

* * *

[NEPHEW!]

/Jesus H Christ, uncle! Too loud! I almost dropped the china!/

[Sorry. But I have good news! _He’s dead!_ ]

/Finally! Fuckin’ hell, what happened?/

[Heart attack,] was the reply, [He was already gone by the time the ambulance arrived. The funeral’s tomorrow, and after that I’ll be flying to London to finalize your adoption.]

/Daisy’ll be glad to see you./

[More like she’ll be glad to see my _ties._ Speaking of family, am I going to meet the boyfriend?]

/Harry an’ I still need to talk about it./

[Then talk! I’ve always wanted to give the Scary Father Figure Talk, but Amanda doesn’t date.]

/That’s probably why./

Greg bade him farewell with a promise to see him within a week and withdrew from the connection. Eggsy came back to himself to find Harry standing in front of him with concern in his eyes. “I’m fine,” said the telepath, moving to finish setting the table for supper, “That was my uncle, Greg. The bastard’s finally kicked it, so he’s gonna be flyin’ down soon to formally bring me, me mum, an’ Daisy into the family.

“He’s also said that we need ta talk about ‘us,’ so he can give you the ‘Scary Father Figure Talk.’”

At that, Harry’s expression shifted to a mix of amusement and trepidation. Eggsy didn’t need to read his mind to know what the elder spy was thinking about here, either; physically, he was more than capable of defending himself, but any threats that became actions would be mental in origin, and against that he had no defence. “I don’t suppose you could teach me how to shield my mind?” he asked, “And the rest of Kingsman?”

“Yeah, I can,” the telepath answered, moving to help Harry finish up, “It’d be easier if I had help, but yeah.”

The two spies plated up their food in comfortable silence and sat down to eat. When they were both comfortably full of Harry’s surprisingly good cooking, the telepath settled back in his chair. “All right, let’s hear it. Gimme all the reasons you got why we shouldn’t be together, so I can shoot ‘em down.”

The elder agent gave him a look, then sighed an obliged. “Eggsy, I’m twice your age.”

“Generation gap’s not an issue,” Eggsy replied, tapping his temple, “I can see where you’re comin’ from, an’ help _you_ see where _I’m_ comin’ from.”

“I’m not going to be able to keep up with you.”

“I’m sure you’ll think of something to wear me out.” He caught another image in the man’s head – himself, bound again to Harry’s bed, but this time he was naked. He’d been made to come at least twice, if the mess on his stomach was anything to go by, and only then was the elder spy easing himself into his thoroughly stretched hole. “Ooh, that’s new. I’m game – I’ll try anything at least once.”

Harry gripped the edges of the table, colour flooding his cheeks, but the telepath headed him off, playing back his own fantasy from “the Judge and the Rent Boy” inside the man’s mind, letting him feel how very welcome the spy’s attention was. “You’re not the only one who’s been thinkin’ about it, Harry,” Eggsy said softly, “adding on his first impressions of the man’s mind when they were reintroduced.

“I’m going to die before you.”

“Maybe,” the telepath granted him, “but one wrong mission, an’ _you_ could outlive _me_ by decades. I’d rather take a chance an’ be happy with you while I can, than let it slip an’ spend my whole life wonderin’ if it’ve been better with you.”

“And your mother?” Harry asked, relaxing a little, “What about her? What will she think about you taking up with the man who got your father killed?”

“She won’t be happy, that’s for sure,” Eggsy conceded, “but she knows I’ve always done things my own way. She’ll accept it, or she won’t.”

“And the others? Lee’s family?”

“Mandy – Amanda – she’s already called you my ‘silver fox of a prince,’ so I think you’re good  there. An’ Uncle Greg wants to like you, I can tell. The rest are high-born, too – I think you’ll get along just fine.”

* * *

“Ya know, if I had known I’d be stuck on recon missions, I’da kept me powers a secret,” Eggsy groaned into the glasses mic. He was sitting in an apartment in Moscow, dutifully transcribing all the information he was pulling from various members of the Russian Mafia in his range.

 _“You’re one of if not our most valuable asset right now, Galahad,”_ was Merlin’s reply, _“and it’s your own damned fault for having such useful abilities. You might just put the data mining team to sleep – you’re doing all their work for them.”_

“You’re not saying that to Marissa!”

 _“Actually he is,”_ said his cousin, smoothly inserting herself into the line, _“Just be glad you actually get out in the field. Some days I think Merlin’s going to lock me in HQ and never let me out.”_

_“Don’t give me any ideas.”_

“Oh, get a room. Where’s Rox – sorry, _Lancelot_?”

 _“She’s on downtime right now, so probably visiting Mandy and Her Majesty. Everything’s finally settled after the fiasco that you aborted – V-Day or whatever – so now we’ve actually_ got _downtime.”_

“And Arthur?”

_“Right here. Come home safely, Galahad.”_

Eggsy smiled. “You got it.”

**Author's Note:**

> Also, be advised: A) I'm American. If I fuck something up, tell me and I'll fix it. B) I've both read and written out Eggsy's accent completely a few times, and it really muddles the comprehensibility of his speech, so I will only be writing out certain parts of it, ie dropping letters, contractions ("That" becomes "tha'," "Harry" becomes "'Arry") rather than respelling words (He pronounces "with" as "wif," "Arthur" as "Arfur," etc.), and even then I probably won't be doing all the time. It can get pretty distracting trying to decipher it, which is not the point of the fic.


End file.
